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Unfortunately, I suspect the only reason he's spoken up about it is that he doesn't have anything left to lose. He's no longer in the public eye, and I can't even think of the last time that Carter may have been politically relevant. HOPEFULLY his opinion means enough to other people to effect positive change...but I doubt it.

Are you a troll, or just completely unaware of what takes place on this planet?

Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Price for his efforts at various hot spots around the world, including Palestine, Cuba, Korea, Egypt, Ireland, Haiti, Venezuela, and the Sudan (and I'm sure I'm missing some others.) He's poured himself into Habitat for Humanity. He created the Carter Center, which works for human rights around the world, peace, and is even fighting preventable diseases.

While he may have not accomplished much of note while in office, Carter has far and away been the most active, most influential, and best ex-president this country's ever seen.

And what was wrong with the committee awarding Peace Prizes to Kissinger and Arafat? Kissinger negotiated the ceasefire in Vietnam, and pulled our troops out. Vietnam is a far more peaceful place now than it was before Kissinger signed the agreement. It maybe didn't work out so well for the "American interests" in the region, but when you look at those interests, we were only there because of the fear of the commies and the "domino effect". Those were really crappy reasons to enter someone else's civil war. Arafat had to do some serious wheeling and dealing within his own organizations and gave up a lot just to get permission to go to Oslo with Rabin, and the resultant accords were a huge step toward peace.

Maybe none of these efforts has ever created a permanent lasting land of happy peace-loving unicorns full of good will hugs, but the world isn't that kind of place. But we do know it was made better for many people due to their efforts.

However I completely agree with you that Obama was awarded it merely for being elected, kind of like a kid getting a trophy for attending baseball practice. I agree that giving it to him did nothing to hold up the reputation of the award. But it still shouldn't diminish Carter's accomplishments any.

Kissinger only negotiated after realizing the US would ultimately lose the war. Kissinger was the person that convinced Nixon the war could be won instead of a peace deal and withdrawal of troops as Nixon had promised during his campaign. Oddly enough at the end of the war, the deal agreed upon was essentially the same deal offered to the US years earlier, only Nixon and Kissinger had the hubris and lack of empathy to sacrifice thousands of Americans and nearly half a million innocent Vietnamese lives.

He's no longer in the public eye, and I can't even think of the last time that Carter may have been politically relevant.

As far as I can tell, he spends his resources doing mostly non-political stuff - building homes for poor people with Habitat for Humanity and such. That's a more mature stance than trying to do good with a political system that's based on violence.

Actually, he's probably been one of our best ex-presidents. Rather than making commercials or getting back into under the table business deals, he has worked with Habitat for Humanity and has overseen democratic elections around the world. When he says we have no functioning democracy, he says it from a professional viewpoint.

Indeed, mod parent up. I can see only one really bad thing Carter did: loosing to Reagan. That started the fast decline of US democracy, along with turning the US into a banana republic (where the top 1% get everything, pay for nothing and get the lower 40% to fight wars and die in the interest of the top 1%).

as for losing to Reagan, while I admire both Presidents, the contest of the 1980 election was very much the shy smart kid vs the popular jock. Not that Carter was really that shy, but he got bogged down in details, and seemed afraid to use his position as The President at times but rather approached things "as a regular person". When you are President, and trying to get things done, that makes it rather harder to win any political conflicts.

Yeah Reagan was the turning point for all we see today. Fool even removed the Solar Panels Mr. Carter put on the White House, that should tell you where he stood. He was a good actor though, the sheep fell in line with him. Definitely Oscar worthy.

He had to "restore faith" that the President was a good person after Nixon totally trashed the office. In THAT he succeeded. The situation with hostages was a sycophant military to Republicans that couldn't do their jobs. while at the same time Iranians were working with Reagan's people secretly and illegally to give him the election.

Knowing what we know now, both Nixon and Reagan committed Capital crimes before they were even sworn into office. Yet somehow Carter was a bad one?

In office, Nixon used the power of government to suppress his rivals. Reagan committed treason by selling arms to the enemy (Iran).

I remember the Reagan era quite well. He was very popular, and in many ways a great guy. But "mistakes were made" (to use his words), and they were not minor peccadilloes. Could you imagine that hard-on that Rush Limbaugh would get if Obama was caught selling arms to Iran in order to fund a war that congress told him he couldn't have? And then imagine a dozen top Obama official being indicted, and being given a presidential pardon. Just because breaking the law isn't breaking th law if you're colluding with the president. That would cause Rush, Beck, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, O'Reilly, and everyone right-wingnut to blow their wad.

It amazes me that smart people sometimes choose the GOP, because they really live by the maximum "tell a lie enough and it become the truth". And they don't know how to keep the budget under control either.

Horseshit. Carter was ineffective, bumbling idiot as a president, his economic policies where horible, inflation was rampant and interest rates were in the 20+ percentage area. He was weak in foreign policy and our adversaries took advantage of that. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and his response was to boycott the 80 Moscow games. His only shining foreign policy moment was getting Sadat and Begin to agree on peace of which I commend him. He and his cabinet failed to recognize the threat that Iran

The economic problems predated Carter, and while he certainly was unable to fix them, he was, after all ultimately stymied by the energy crisis of the late 1970s. As to the Afghan invasion, what exactly could he have done? At no point during the Cold War did the US contemplate direct intervention against the Soviets, save as a final nightmare scenario like an all-out invasion of Western Europe. Neither Carter, nor any other President, would have directly involved the US in Afghanistan. As to Iran, yes, he misjudged the unpopularity of the Shah, but then again, so had several administrations before him, so I fail to see how you can put your focus solely on the Carter Administration's actions surrounding Iran, seeing as he was perpetuating a policy that his predecessors had maintained for well over two decades.

Carter was hardly a perfect president, but he is a classic example of how sometimes leaders get the job at the worst of all possible moments, and ultimately no matter what they do or don't do, the situation is far larger and chaotic than any leader, particularly of a democratic state, can hope to overcome.

Carter is a damned bright guy, a helluva brighter than his immediate successor, but he was as screwed as Herbert Hoover (another very bright guy)/

Oil prices relative to historic norm is a quite good predictor of both economic growth in the following year and people's assessment of presidential performance, much more so than the paritcular politics, policies, brain power, or charisma of the man in the White House. As single factor analysis goes, it is vastly better than one would expect. Strangely enough, most political analysts largely ignore it.

Carter was left holding the bag when oil prices hit historic highs. His policies were not fundamentally different from Nixon/Ford, who also suffered in the public's eyes.

Reagan was liked...after the oil prices came down. Perceptions of his competence were not particularly good before oil finally dropped below 50 a barrel.

HBush was actually rather well liked but oil trended upwards during his term, then trended down for Clinton's term.

WBush and Obama are presidents after the rise of China -- we are never going to see the kind of low oil prices we enjoyed in the 90s or 60s again. Never. Thus it would not be surprising if 2-3% growth is the new norm for the good years, into the foreseeable future; as a consequence, Obama and whoever takes office in 2016 are not likely to be greatly popular, even if they walk on water or raise the dead.

Things can change. If China's economy craters, oil price might drift downwards for a while. Whoever is in the White House in 2016 or 2020 might get a free bump there. Also fracking might put some significant downward pressure on energy prices. We shall see.

Horseshit. Carter was ineffective, bumbling idiot as a president, his economic policies where horible, inflation was rampant and interest rates were in the 20+ percentage area.

This is always everyone's top billing, and always the one with the least specificity. That's because it has absolutely nothing to do with policy, and everything to do with correcting runaway inflation caused by an oil embargo.

He was weak in foreign policy and our adversaries took advantage of that.

I'm glad you're specific about this, and I'll address the specific things below, but using "weak" in an discussion of foreign policy makes you seem like a neanderthal, man. It's really emotional, and in no way reflects a sensible view of the world.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and his response was to boycott the 80 Moscow games.

His replacement's plan of using military support to back the Taliban was a great idea that had no long term repercussions for the U.S.

His only shining foreign policy moment was getting Sadat and Begin to agree on peace of which I commend him. He and his cabinet failed to recognize the threat that Iran posed once the Shaw became ill and was thrown out of power.

Oh you mean how our direct support of the Shaw in his dictatorial games through the CIA prior to that in no way lead to the Islamic Republic Seizing power and creating the theocratic nightmare we face today, right?

Other than that he was a waste of 4 years for this country.

He and Dubya will always probably be in the bottom 5, Obama will be there soon enough, just keep watching.

Yeah, comparing Carter to the "let's invade a country for no reason" Bush is totally a false dilemma. For worse presidents than carter: Garfield(institutional corruption), Bush II(literally every criticism of Obama applies to him to a greater degree, and he killed hundreds of thousands for no reason), Reagan(you're going to disagree, but come on: savings and loan + Iran Contra + deficit explosion), Nixon(literally betrayed the country for first election, secretly spied on opponents with the CIA for re-election), Jackson(trail of tears), and Buchanan(essentially caused the civil war with all his moderately pro-slavery not-caring) all easily make the list.

I'd say the greater problem with Reagan is how he courted religious extremists, that combined with the bigots brought in by Nixon's southern strategy, led to the devolution of the Republican party into the far-right-wing circus it is today.
I'd like to get back to having 2 sane parties to choose from, but I don't think the Republicans can recover since they're unwilling to show the bigots and crazies the door, and modernize their views so they can appeal to reasonable people.

Oh please spare your bleeding heart bullshit. At a time when we needed a leader we got a dumbfuck who was inept at everything:

1) There was an Embargo in 1973 and in 1977. The difference between those two, we had better leadership in the WH in 1973 than in 1977. Great leaders work around problems, motivate their constituents and forge ahead. Carter layed there like a bowl of jello. He couldn't forge alliances and he didn't reach out to try and bridge the gaps. Yes there's hate in the Middle East, there was hate before so I can't blame him for that and instead of in 1977 he waited till 1979 to promote domestic production by deregulation of oil prices. Something the Industry had been clamoring for since 1973. At least he learned from his first mistake.

2) Interest rates were rampant, that's failed economic policies and the president sets the agenda. He had a willing congress who'd pass is legislative agenda, but he didn't lead. Inaction in this case led to the biggest drop in our standard of living

3) His foreign policy failings led to the invasion of Afghanistan because the Soviets saw an opportunity with the turmoil in Iran and the US helpless to stop them. The US couldn't build a coalition and the only response we had "boycott the olympics" Who didn't go? Oh yeah I think it was just us a handful of nations. Hell he even sent Mohammad Ali to convince African Nations to boycott the games. [wikipedia.org] Even the British went to the games! That was his diplomacy; what a fucking joke.

4) The US had interests in Iran, we f*d up with the CIA and by helping the British but in for a penny in for a pound and we abandoned our allies at their time of need and got a radical regime instead. The Shaw was horrible and he did horrible things to his people but the way we just sat there and said "Meh" gave all of our other allies in the world a chance to think and say "They didn't step in to help? What happens if I'm in trouble?" Supporting Dictators and repressive regimes is bad but you also don't turn your back on friends. I can't blame him for what happened in Iran but I can blame every president since for not even trying to heal that wound.

5) Give him credit for the Camp David Accords, that was good work but he ignored everything else and tried to tell Americans out of work, with prices skyrocketing that he was good leader.

The country was poorer and still is because of his tenure in office. Even his "malaise" speech showed that he was a defeatist and not a leader.

He's done good work since then but you still can't paint over the fact that he was a bumbling idiot. History may paint a rosier picture of him but living with him as our president was a bad bad time. People were even longing for Gerald Ford, he was so bad. His end approval rating was in the low 34%. Put that into perspective: Even the people who voted for him thought he sucked, Democrats, Independents and Republicans after 4 years. He does share that with Dubya but more people in Dubya's case were against him vs. undecided. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/final_approval.php [ucsb.edu] but it took 8 years to get that kind of coverage.. So, twice as bad as Dubya? Maybe...

[quote]The Presidential Leadership Index fell to 43.2 from 48.9 a month earlier. The 11.7% slide was the worst since Obama took office. For the fourth straight month, the reading stood below 50, signaling disapproval.[/quote]

And he's not even done with his first year of his second term. Let's all give him a round of applause folks!

Those economic policies were necessary as the nation transitioned away from being an industrial power under the bretton woods system to an Empire that extracts money from the global economy through wall street and down to the peasants via the "service economy". His failure, if there was one, involved not using our military enough to scare the world into using USD for international trade. Subsequent presidents, regardless of party affiliation, have not had this problem. In fact, Obama might be the best one

Rose colored glasses much? Or maybe too many martinis at lunch. While I'm less and less enthralled with Obama, nobody holds a candle to Nixon / Kissinger in terms of malfeasance and outright illegality.

Rose colored glasses much? Or maybe too many martinis at lunch. While I'm less and less enthralled with Obama, nobody holds a candle to Nixon / Kissinger in terms of malfeasance and outright illegality.

How is the Watergate break-in worse than bugging the campaign office of Mitch McConnell? How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS, the EPA, and other federal agencies, and have the NSA spy on them and on reporters?

Nixon never orchestrated a false flag kidnapping at a consulate, and then tried to cover it up when it went south. He never sold weapons to drug cartels. He didn't target children with drones, either. He ENDED the Vietnam war, and didn't start any ot

How is the Watergate break-in worse than bugging the campaign office of Mitch McConnell?

Unlike with Nixon, there's no evidence that Obama had anything to do with that. The Watergate scandal, in comparison, involved people from Nixon's presidential campaign (Liddy), the US Attorney General, and Nixon's personal Presidential Council. It's most likely that Curtis Morrison acted independently. He was a member of Kentucky liberal advocacy group that had no connections (that I'm aware of at least) to Obama or his Presidential Campaign. If you have evidence that says otherwise, I'd love to read it.

Just because Obama is a Democratic President doesn't mean that he's actually directly in charge of every Democrat or other liberal.

How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS, the EPA, and other federal agencies, and have the NSA spy on them and on reporters?

Well, first of all, the IRS scandal was mischaracterized in its early stages by the media. The IRS looked at a broad spectrum of 501(c) groups. Conservative groups were targeted (groups that mentioned "Tea party," "9/12", "patriots," etc.). So were liberal groups (ones that mentioned "occupy," "progress," "equality," etc.). So were groups interested in Israel, constitutional issues, the integrity of elections, and several other nonpartisan issues. Of those groups, the only one that was denied 501(c) status was Emerge America, a liberal advocacy group. No conservative groups were denied.

Now it wasn't completely non-partisan. Conservative groups were delayed in receiving their approval. There's indication that the National Organization for Marriage had its 2008 tax return deliberately leaked. Some chicanery was going on there.

But did Obama know? Signs indicate that he learned of it about the same time the public did. (He was aware of an ongoing investigation but not the contents of it.) No evidence has arisen that he did know ahead of time.

As for the EPA FOIA fee thing, I'll admit that's kind of shady. I don't believe it comes from the top, but it's a black mark on his administration, I think based on the facts I currently have. I think the effects of being on Nixon's enemies list was a bit more harsh: tax audits, denial of federal grants and contracts, etc.

For the last, I hate the NSA spying programs, but is there any evidence they've specifically went after reporters? I'd love to hear it. (More fuel for the fire on that subject, as far as I'm concerned.)

Nixon never orchestrated a false flag kidnapping at a consulate, and then tried to cover it up when it went south.

Neither did Obama. That's full-on crank territory if you want to claim that's what Benghazi was. Nixon did however orchestrate a burglary at the Chilean embassy, which is far closer to what you're accusing Obama of than what actually happened.

He never sold weapons to drug cartels.

True, you'd have to wait for Reagan for that. Of course, he was straight up selling arms to terrorists and using the money fund drug trafficking contras to fight communists. (Yet another episode in a long, terrible history of covert US actions to support terrible people just because they are the enemies of our enemies.)

Obama's ATF, at least, was selling the guns to try to track down criminals with an intent to disrupt and arrest them -- not to deliberately support them. Still, a pretty colossal screw up considering how many arms weren't recovered.

He didn't target children with drones, either.

Only because he didn't have them. The carpet bombing of Cambodia, which killed tens of thousands of civilians was a far greater atrocity than Obama's drone program (which I think is unconscionable too; just on a far different scale of "collateral damage," aka negligent mass murder).

Could we get some winger trolls that are a little less willfully ignorant please?

How is the Watergate break-in worse than bugging the campaign office of Mitch McConnell?

1. Someone walking by and recording a conversation with a handheld device isn't "bugging", it's "eavesdropping". No device left in the room? Then it's not bugged.

2. Obama is responsible for the actions of every democrat in the country now? In that case, which republican is responsible for James O'Keefe's actual attempt to bug a senator's office?

How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS, the EPA

You do know that democratic groups were not just given equal scrutiny by the IRS, but that the only group to be denied tax-exempt status was a democratic group? And this all happened under a Bush appointee to the IRS?

As for the EPA, you mean the agency where the Obama Administration had to be taken to court to actual enforce EPA regulations rather than giving industry a free pass? That EPA?

He ENDED the Vietnam war

You mean Ford ended the war.

He didn't target children with drones, either.

Finally you get to something that isn't from 'bagger la la land. It's not like Obama hasn't pulled enough real right-wing power grabs without having to make up stupid bullshit about the IRS or the EPA. It's like you guys will lose your winger merit badges if your attacks aren't 90% bullshit.

You do know that democratic groups were not just given equal scrutiny by the IRS, but that the only group to be denied tax-exempt status was a democratic group? And this all happened under a Bush appointee to the IRS?

As it turns out, the commissioner was appointed during the Bush presidency, but was actually a Democratic technocrat from K Street, selected by Max Baucus. He's a Democrat and a active supporter of the Democratic party [examiner.com]. At the time (2008), the senate was controlled by Democrats. The IRS Commissioner gets a 5-year appointment, and the Democrats would not confirm an appointee selected by Bush, suggesting he appoint an "acting" commissioner instead. But the law only allows an acting commissioner to serve a

[America] has a very small productive economy and thrives exclusively on plunder.

We are still the number one manufacturer in the world, representing a full 1/5 of all production output on the planet. It's just that the things we produce are not typical consumer goods, and so the picture you're average American gets is that we don't make anything. Your typical American doesn't use Caterpillar heavy construction equipment, Boeing or Lockheed aircraft (other than maybe flying in them), GE turbines, oil rigs, mining drills, spacecraft, or the bulk of the free world's military equipment.

Yeah, all our clothes and cheap plastic stuff is made in China, and our consumer electronics are made in Japan and Taiwan; but heavy industry, military hardware, construction equipment, resource extraction tools all over the world are stamped MADE IN USA.

As you can see, the aggregate manufacturing output is 12% of the GDP, less than that attributed to real estate. The aggregate value of industrial production in the US is $1.7 trillion dollars. If you honestly believe the aggregate value of all manufacturing in the world is $8.5 trillion, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

The US does have some industry, but it is not relevant to the employment and purchasing power of the average citizen. Back in 1960, a substantial portion of the populace earned a solid living employed in these sectors.

The question becomes how do we have a country when so little of our economy involves the actual basics of economics - production of the necessities of life? How do we import so much crap from China and simply trade rice, wheat, and trash in return?

The answer is financialization, summarized in my previous post. I would recommend Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism: Origins and Fundamentals of US World Dominance to understand the exact mechanics of how this works.

PS: Your 1/5 number was probably true in the 1950s and 1960s. I'm not going to lookup that data however.

As other have said, Carter has a fictitious legacy as a complete disaster for the US. So since it takes one to know one, I trust his opinion on Snowden.

There weren't really any policies that Carter set out that were bad. The oil crisis did, in fact, make life really terrible, but that was long-coming foreign policy chickens coming home to roost. Every criticism of carter seems to end up centering around how bad those 4 years were economically, which is a really hard thing to control over that time span, especially with a maliciously induced energy shortage.

He screwed up the ability of the nuclear industry to move to safer, clean technologies, effectively trapping the US into 1950's light water reactors.

Your facts are in error. You are aware that President Carter is a nuclear engineer? He knew what he was doing. In actuality, whether by greed, negligence, or incompetence, it was the nuclear/energy industry itself that shit its own bed. President Carter merely delivered them the news of this.

Only by people who think Reagan was the second coming of George Washington. If you were dumb enough to vote for Bush the Lesser you might actually believe that Carter was a bad president. Carter was a mediocre president who served during a period of rather bad economic problems that were not his fault. His record is mixed but isn't especially bad overall. I'm old enough to actually remember when he was in office and there hasn't been a president since who I feel was substantially better and one who was considerably worse.

Carter was not a disaster. Too many people speak too much about how little they know.

Carter was a Naval Academy grad who went on to serve in submarines, particuarly in the nuclear service under Rickover himself, and during his stint he was in charge of a special rescue crew that was responsible for cleaning up a failed experiemntal reactor, by actually climbing into the radioactive chamber, which they did, including himself. He went home and became a farmer, and later Governor of GA, and fairly successful and popular at that.

When he was President he didnt' just preach conservation during the energy crisis, but led by example (and when you know how rarely Prseident's do THAT!) and had solar heaters isntalled at the White House, and wore sweaters if the building were cold. You like beer? He deregulated the beer industry. Prior to that, it was illegal to run a home brewery. He also was behind the airline deregulation (which at the time was a reasonable thing...that fact that it's now swung to the opposite side of the too much/too little regulation spectrum not withstanding)

Overall, his presidency was rather uneventful. It is a tankless job that always results in at least one half the country calling you an idiot and playing armchair quarterback. on top of that, Carter was a transitionary president, the country having just gotten out of Vietnam, and the focus moving inward. Presidents in such situations especially tend to be negatively viewed, and lucky if they make it out alive with nothing major happening. Carter's only really big fumble was the botched rescue of the hostages, and that owed more to planning problems (oversights and mistakes, overly complex, too many moving parts, as well as mechanical and maintenance failuers, etc) than to the adminstration.

Carters biggest problem was a seeming lack of confidence in his own position. But since then he's continued to act as a diplomat and representive for our nation,a nd been highly successful at that as well.

He may not have been a shining star of the likes of Jefferson or Lincoln, but neither that does not make him a disaster. He was far from it, and political ideology aside, he continues to be a good example of a good American citizen who loves and serves his country.

Mod parent up.We need more brave politicians to finally speak their minds about this instead of fearing the surveillance machine.

Bear in mind, Carter was a one term president, widely despised by Republicans and effectively abandoned by his own party -- unable to get many of his programs through a congress controlled by the Democratic Party (which at the time still contained a lot of southern social conservatives.)

He has worn the mantle of elder statesman and sage well since his time in office. Quite possibly one of the best educated and most greatly concerned for the american people of US presidents of the past century.

To be fair, I don't think anyone who was president from 1976-1980 could have been re-elected. Those were hard years for the US: high inflation, unemployment, the OPEC oil embargo, the bitter and recent memory of Vietnam, and the Iranian hostage crisis. That's just off the top of my head. No one could have solved all those problems at once, and it's easier to blame the President than to propose a solution.

It should also be mentioned that most of those issues were caused by factors beyond the control of Carter and his administration (eg. the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis had their roots in the 1956 Iranian coup, stagflation was a global phenomenon which in the US was largely the result of the Nixon shock).

Then there's the whole October Surprise [wikipedia.org] topic; even without going into wingnut conspiracy mode, there's some things in there to make anyone go "hmm".

Arguably, Carter ushered in a lot of improvements - Camp David, the departments of energy and education, a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets despite massive cold war tensions.

And last but not least, I can't see anyone arguing about the fact that the guy has (and had) integrity - which is saying a lot in a President.

You missed the fact that Carter is the only President, next to Clinton, who didn't pay lip-service to peace in the Middle East. He is the only one to get Israel and a neighbor to sign a peace treaty and formal recognition which exists to this day without issue.

The Clinton issue was a failure by Arafat to pull the trigger and sign the deal for various reasons.

As an aside, Bush 1 did stick it to Israel by stopping the U.S. backing loan guarantees when Israel kept thumbing its nose at the U.S. by illegally confiscating Palestinian land and settling its own people there. He did eventually reinstate the U.S taxpayer being on the hook but only after Israel backed down (for a time. They're back it with a vengeance as we speak).

Bill Clinton also negotiated a peace settlement between Israel and Jordan in 1994 that has continued to hold up for almost 20 years now.

The primary reasons the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations fell apart were (1) Arafat wasn't willing to sign a deal without a right of return, and (2) Yitzak Rabin was killed by an Israeli Jew who believed that the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza should be part of Israel. Since then, peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine have been mostly a joke - Al Jazeera got t

One of the few times I've broken my "third party rule" is to vote for Clinton. He was an effective politician and genuinely seemed to have our best interests at heart. He's the only president I've ever voted for that won. I am not sure what that says except that I generally vote third party.

Mod parent up.We need more brave politicians to finally speak their minds about this instead of fearing the surveillance machine.

Bear in mind, Carter was a one term president, widely despised by Republicans and effectively abandoned by his own party -- unable to get many of his programs through a congress controlled by the Democratic Party (which at the time still contained a lot of southern social conservatives.)

He has worn the mantle of elder statesman and sage well since his time in office. Quite possibly one of the best educated and most greatly concerned for the american people of US presidents of the past century.

Carter always was concerned. Not only for the American people, but for people everywhere. His "Sunday School" image wasn't just a posture.

That, in a way was his downfall. Both Carter and Ford were pretty decent guys. About the only election where I thought it was a choice between who to vote for rather than whom to vote against. But they were both pretty ineffective overall. Carter did his part in reducing tensions between Israel and the Arabs (especially Egypt), and both Carter and Ford quietly kept the Evil Empire of the USSR at bay as it slowly ground itself to powder before finally collapsing at Reagan's feet.

But evidently nice guys finish last. Reagan didn't give a shit about other countries feelings, and, ironically, they respected him more for it. Bush I wasn't the disaster I'd feared, although he didn't actually do much better than Carter or Ford. Clinton was a sleazebag, but presided over one of the most peaceful and prosperous eras in US history. Then there was Dubya, who had been muttering about attacking Iraq almost from the moment he took office. Iraq was going to get slapped down anyway, since while they might have lacked usable WMDs, they had been getting more and more obnoxious in their probes against the no-fly zones even before Clinton departed. If we'd just waited another year or so, we could have gone in with the world at our backs instead of the world backing off. Which brings us to Obama, who was supposed to undo the excesses of Bush II, but has been looking more and more like Bush II revarnished.

In the mean time, while presidents came and went, the security paranoia infrastructure did not. J. Edgar Hoover was a nasty piece of work, although his spiritual predecessors were no angels. Who exactly inherited his excesses isn't totally clear to me, although the name "William Casey" seems to ring some bells. And the faceless beetle-like men developed Echelon, Prism and other programs of lesser fame. The lines between internal investigations (FBI) and external ones (CIA) blurred. They don't use the name "Total Information Awareness" any more, but that is the obvious goal.

Excepting his fawning over various dictators. There's an insightful saying about him: "Jimmy Carter never met a dictator that he didn't like."

You are saying complete BS. For example, Carter was one of the few US presidents who put pressure on latin America's dictatorships to try to alleviate the human rights abuses. He put an arms embargo on Argentina's dictatorship (later rescinded by Reagan, a factor that eventually lead to the Argentina-UK war in 1982).

Mod parent up.
We need more brave politicians to finally speak their minds about this instead of fearing the surveillance machine.

What are you talking about? There are plenty of politicians speaking their minds about Snowden -- but I don't know if I'd call them "brave." Looking at just the previous administration, George W. Bush [rt.com]:

cheny & gwb got nothing to lose from their legacies being labeled as illegal and as herding the country towards "non-functioning democracy". sure as fuck they got plenty of points to lose. if either of them said that what the programs are doing is wrong they would be saying that they were wrong and not just wrong but unconstitutional and as extension actual traitors to the country, so what are they gonna do? label snowden as traitor, of course... just like they didn't like a lot the leaks which effectively tell that they're war criminals.

We need more brave politicians to finally speak their minds about this instead of fearing the surveillance machine.

What are you talking about? There are plenty of politicians speaking their minds about Snowden -- but I don't know if I'd call them "brave." Looking at just the previous administration, George W. Bush [rt.com]:

Of course, as another poster mentioned, they've got nothing to lose same as Carter.

Yeah, well Bush and Cheney are like two criminals who've never been tried for the scan of engaging the US in Iraq. I can't see them finding a silver lining in any of this. Somewhere along the line the Bush Whitehouse decided to behave like J. Edgar Hoover, sans dresses.

"I think he has committed crimes in effect by violating agreements given the position he had," he continued. "I think it's one of the worst occasions in my memory of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous damage to the national security interests of the United States."

The best thing to do with the Cheney quote is forget Cheney said it about Snowden. Re-read the quote, and imagine somebody else said it about Cheney. Which version rings more true?

American: In my country I can go on TV, in front of millions of people, and call the president of the United States an idiot.

Russian: So what, in my country I too can go on TV, in front of millions of people, and call the president of the United States an idiot.

P.S. At the time that was true in the United States. It was a less dangerous time. The biggest problem we faced was nuclear annihilation in less time than it takes to eat dinner. Now we face guys who put black powder in pressure cookers.

P.S. At the time that was true in the United States. It was a less dangerous time. The biggest problem we faced was nuclear annihilation in less time than it takes to eat dinner. Now we face guys who put black powder in pressure cookers.

This has got to be in the running for the most insightful quip of the year. Says it all.

American: In my country I can go on TV, in front of millions of people, and call the president of the United States an idiot.

Russian: So what, in my country I too can go on TV, in front of millions of people, and call the president of the United States an idiot.

P.S. At the time that was true in the United States. It was a less dangerous time. The biggest problem we faced was nuclear annihilation in less time than it takes to eat dinner. Now we face guys who put black powder in pressure cookers.

One of the things I appreciate about Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert, keep us laughing at our own foibles, don't ignore those foibles, but recognize the idiocy of how we behave as parties, people and country. Under the Bush administration I felt we were approaching something vaguely Stalinist, where laughing at our mistakes was felt to be unpatriotic - when France challenged our information and motives for going into Iraq we had people re-naming French Fries as Freedom Fries - I think that was a very worrying thing and showed an extreme depth of stupidity. Turned out France was right to do so. Questioning government is the most patriotic thing we can do, not call ourselves pretend PATRIOTS and wrap ourselves up in the flag.

I do agree with Carter, the exposure of this sort of thing is healthy. Perhaps the government needs to do some of these things, but not under a cloak of double secrecy.

Dick Cheney (along with Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, and others) committed the exact same crime under the exact same act as Snowden did, specifically by giving information about something of national security (Valerie Plame's CIA cover) to someone that wasn't supposed to have it (the news). That makes him a hypocrite. George W. Bush turned the ECHELON successor PRISM against US citizens using his pet policy of the Patriot Act, but he is correct - Snowden probably did damage the security of the country by re

Provided you have not leaked information that would put in harms way any intelligence agent, I believe you have done the right thing in exposing what I regard as massive violation of the United States Constitution.

Having served in the United States Senate for twelve years as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee, I think I have a good grounding to reach my conclusion.

I wish you well in your efforts to secure asylum and encourage you to persevere.

Kindly acknowledge this message, so that I will know it reached you.

Regards,
Gordon J. Humphrey
Former United States Senator
New Hampshire

Here is another of his messages:

Mr. Greenwald,

Yes. It was I who sent the email message to Edward Snowden, thanking him for exposing astonishing violations of the US Constitution and encouraging him to persevere in the search for asylum.

To my knowledge, Mr. Snowden has disclosed only the existence of a program and not details that would place any person in harm's way. I regard him as a courageous whistle-blower.

I object to the monumentally disproportionate campaign being waged by the U.S. Government against Edward Snowden, while no effort is being made to identify, remove from office and bring to justice those officials who have abused power, seriously and repeatedly violating the Constitution of the United States and the rights of millions of unsuspecting citizens.

Americans concerned about the growing arrogance of our government and its increasingly menacing nature should be working to help Mr. Snowden find asylum. Former Members of Congress, especially, should step forward and speak out.

Can I just say, that RT article provided no context whatsoever to this quote? Does Mr. Carter believe "America has no functioning democracy at this moment" becausea.) intrusive, pervasive domestic spying supresses minority viewsb.) gerrymandering, incessant filibusters, etc have thwarted the evident will of the majorityc.) astroturfing, the Citizens United decision, opacity in finance of politics have warped the nature of small-d democracy in America?d.) limiting access to the ballot, mandating ID at polling stations, etc have eroded the enfranchisement of voters?e.) both major political parties are beholden to corporate and private money such that the outcome, whoever wins, is largely the same?f.) the press, beset by false equivalencies, threatened constantly by acquisitions and downsizing, discouraged from publishing radical stances or asking difficult questions of the politicians on whose access its livelihood rests, has broken its compact with the public?g.) all of the above?

Surely Mr. Carter is an expressive and thoughtful speaker, whether you agree or disagree with his views. I'm certain if you found the full content of what he said around his "no functioning democracy" statement, it would be far more illuminating than what was included in RT.

Originally FISC was created as a safeguard, because of the findings of the Church committee [wikipedia.org]. The problem is that since then its powers have been expanded by the Patriot Act, etc. Furthermore, all courts are garbage if somebody has the judges in their pocket (ideologically and politically in this case, not financially).

The original FISA was quite different than the modern FISA, as a result of the PATRIOT and the FISA Amendments Act passed in 2008 and re-authorized in 2012, as well as the morphing of the FISA court (FISC) from a body that simply said "yes" or "no" to warrant requests against spies and foreign operatives, into a Star Chamber-esque court where secret legal precedents are set in ex parte hearings that lack any element of adversarialism such as the presentation of opposing arguments.

Blaming Carter for this is a bit like blaming Mendeleev for the existence of nuclear weapons because he created the periodic table of elements.

It's been said a few times by other people, but there goes: Jimmy Carter is pretty much the best former president the U.S.A. have ever had. Come to think of it, just like Obama might be remembered as the best future president the U.S.A. ever had.

I had not heard of these before and had to look it up. The privacy act ONLY applies to newspaper reporters, stemming from this incident:

"Respondents, a student newspaper that had published articles and photographs of a clash between demonstrators and police at a hospital, and staff members, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against, among others, petitioners, law enforcement and district attorney personnel, claiming that a search pursuant to a warrant issued on a judge's finding of probable cause that the newspaper (which was not involved in the unlawful acts) possessed photographs and negatives revealing the identities of demonstrators who had assaulted police officers at the hospital had deprived respondents of their constitutional rights." source [findlaw.com]

On a side note, when explaining the Privacy Act to the general public, Jimmy Carter is probably the only president ever to make this statement: "We have reduced the size of these Government files by more than 10 percent."

The thing is... he wasn't one of our best Presidents. He might well be very smart and well intentioned, and those are good things, but they don't by themselves make you a great leader.

I'm not a big fan of FDR, but I can tell you that if it had been FDR in office at the end of the 70's and not Carter, Ronald Reagan would have died an ex-Governor of California. FDR knew how to get stuff done, Carter, not so much.

Obama is sort of coming in the same as Carter, although as our first black president, he's already made the history books. There's nothing wrong with Obama as a person, he's just not a very good President. Presidents who are good at their jobs don't just have good intentions, they get shit done. It doesn't matter if they were dealt a shit hand by the past administrations. FDR inherited a Great Depression. Lincoln inherited a Civil War. They took care of business.

Aside from Carter being in love with leftist dictators, I actually respect him as a statesman, but let's not start re-writing history here.

No President is better described by those words than Jimmy Carter. He really has been a good person to a fault.

One of the criticism I most remember about him was his selling the Presidential Yacht. He did so to try to set an example of austerity, and of course save money. But he was criticized, perhaps justly, because that yacht had been one of the better tools for the President to influence congress. Apparently it was a big deal to get invited on a yachting day with the President and all that one on one time would allow the President to influence votes.

Carter however felt that Congress should just vote for things because they were right. He was always trying to appeal to the better part of human nature. In some ways Obama is similar, he doesn't really schmooze with congress well, certainly not in the way Ron, George, Bill and George did!

Carter put solar panels on the Whitehouse.
Reagan took them down
Here we are 30-some years later still jacking off over renewable energy...
If anything, Carter was way ahead of his time.
Every president since has been under heel of the carbon extraction industrial complex.

Looking back on history, I never got the dislike towards him. He was handed a bad deck into his presidency (inflation from Viet Nam, Oil embargo, stagflation, Iran hostages, military incompetence, and a couple of other things he was blamed for).

One of the most ballsy things he did was Tip O'Neil was elated that "one of them" was in the White House and Carter wouldn't play ball. And as we have seen many times, when one party controls both the Whitehouse and Congress, the pork flies and the budget sinks!

He was also one of our smartest presidents and one of the few who had some sort of science training - he was a nuclear engineer (BS, US Naval Academy).

It's because he was an engineer. He was interested in facts and solutions, not maneuvering. He assumed that when he had the right answer, he could implement it, because other people would see that it was right and would agree with it.

To put it a different way: "Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and Jimmy Carter were good men, honorable men. But they disdained the game, and those who play it." - Varys

It's because he was an engineer. He was interested in facts and solutions, not maneuvering. He assumed that when he had the right answer, he could implement it, because other people would see that it was right and would agree with it.

To put it a different way: "Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and Jimmy Carter were good men, honorable men. But they disdained the game, and those who play it." - Varys

Precisely. He honestly thought the best ideas would simply win out on their own merits, no convincing or horse-trading required. So he didn't bother, and came off as an aloof political idiot.

He couldn't even get along with his own party, let alone the opposition. Not to mention the Oil Crisis and a giant friggen volcano blew up, and the US had no power to prevent either, he just had to muddle through with the shit sandwich fate gave him.

It's mostly scapegoating from the right. Presidents who serve during tough economic times usually get a disproportionate amount of blame for problems that they weren't responsible for creating and often can't do much to fix. Since he wasn't exactly beloved by his own party, Carter is a fairly easy target by the conservatives. Their criticisms of him are rarely fair or accurate but the tactic has worked in the past.